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Tuesday, 25 June 2013

Golden by Jessi Kirby

Seventeen-year-old Parker Frost has never taken the road less traveled. Valedictorian and quintessential good girl, she’s about to graduate high school without ever having kissed her crush or broken the rules. So when fate drops a clue in her lap—one that might be the key to unraveling a town mystery—she decides to take a chance.Julianna Farnetti and Shane Cruz are remembered as the golden couple of Summit Lakes High—perfect in every way, meant to be together forever. But Julianna’s journal tells a different story—one of doubts about Shane and a forbidden romance with an older, artistic guy. These are the secrets that were swept away with her the night that Shane’s jeep plunged into an icy river, leaving behind a grieving town and no bodies to bury.

Reading Julianna’s journal gives Parker the courage to start to really live—and it also gives her reasons to question what really happened the night of the accident. Armed with clues from the past, Parker enlists the help of her best friend, Kat, and Trevor, her longtime crush, to track down some leads. The mystery ends up taking Parker places that she never could have imagined. And she soon finds that taking the road less traveled makes all the difference.

When I saw this book for free from Pulseit, I was overjoyed since I had heard amazing things about this author. One of her books had a blurb from Sarah Dessen, not only that but the summary drew me in. This book is amazing with a capital A. I'm not even kidding.The writing was raw, beautiful, honest, and completely outstanding. Jessi writes it with so much passion. The journal entries in this book did seem sort of unbelievable. They almost felt too perfect - not like it's a bad thing.They were just too formal, like they were writing a persuasive letter. The main character Parker was your normal seventeen teenager. She was one of those girls who hid behind the scene, but that sort of changed when she decided to read one Julianna Farnetti's journal. As she begins to unravel the truth, she starts to see things differently. Parker was a great narrator. The thoughts she had about the couple, I was also thinking the same. I also adored the tension between Trevor and Parker. Their relationship slowly builds as the plot progresses. The ending was predictable, like really predictable which was sort of a turn off. I knew exactly what was coming. Though it was predictable, I couldn't ask for a better ending.Golden is filled with love, tragedy and mystery. You all need to pick up this book now! And I mean, now!